Comparing Up The Coolly 'And Under The Lion's Paw'

Author Hamlin Garland published Main Travelled Roads in 1891. The book contains 11 short stories, all relating to what life was like during that 1800’s. Two of the short stories in the collection are “Up the Coolly,” and “Under the Lion’s Paw.” The short story “Up the Coolly” is about a man named Howard McLane coming back to his home town only to find that his family is suffering economically, even though they tried numerous times to contact him to ask for money. The other story, “Under the Lion’s Paw,” is follows the Haskins family as they purchase a farm. The family must work on it until they have enough money to pay it off, this process takes three years. The man you sold the farm to the Haskins, Jim Butler, now realizes the worth of it and raises the

The main goal of this group was to improve the working and living conditions for farmers. They wanted to help farmers economically because the debts of farmers increased greatly due to the increase to monopolistic powers of big businesses, and banks (Getchell). In order for Garland’s short stories to be effective the stories need to fit a few criteria. The families represented need to be suffering economically, such as low income, high mortgages, and unfair trade. All of those aspects had some sort of impact on farmers of the late 1800’s. Since the evaluations is of the effectiveness of how garland depicts the impact economics had on farmers, these certain aspects would need to be present. If they are present then it would mean that is was an effective portrayal. Hamlin Garland effectively portrays the impact economics had on farmers, both emotionally and physically, in the short stories “Up the Coolly,” and “Under the Lion’s Paw” that depicted low income, high mortgages, and unfair trade; he does this in order to create propaganda for his populist party beliefs, which wanted to improve the lifestyles of agrarian